


just a dream, of course

by sketchbooksandspace



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, I have a lot of emotions okay, M/M, Post Promised Land
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sketchbooksandspace/pseuds/sketchbooksandspace
Summary: Peter still occasionally checks up on Juno.





	just a dream, of course

Sometimes, he missed the sound of his own name. Of somebody he could trust letting the syllables roll off of their tongue. He didn’t regret the adventure that his lifestyle of thievery brought, but there was something a little to akin to godliness in how he could escape all the consequences, or take on any persona. It wasn’t right, at least to him. It felt like wearing an untailored outfit, somehow too much and too little all in one. He sometimes even forgot that he was merely a single man, that he was completely human.

These sorts of times usually led to what he called _‘Detective Watching.’_ Even if he said that he would leave Juno alone if Juno had wanted it, the Kanagawas took carrying a grudge to a brand new level. Having taken part in the job which warranted such a death wish, he felt responsible for protecting Juno even after the fact. He had needed to take up hacking as a hobby in order to set up alarms for when the Kanagawas got bored and decided to revisit their hit list for stragglers, or they were reminded that a certain lady was still alive.

Flipping open his portable computer, he decided that it had been too long since he had checked up on his- _the_ Detective. Even if he was back on Mars, it was important that he kept Juno safe from the Kanagawas or others at a _distance,_ if his protection was even necessary. He ran his usual code for facial recognition into the network of security cameras he’d hacked into. Luckily, he had a very large portion of Hyperion city covered, and had been able to keep eyes on Juno every time he needed.

But there was something different this time around. He was unable to find the detective, which did happen every once in a while, but all Peter had to do was rewind the cameras a bit until he saw the last time Juno appeared on tape, usually going into some shady warehouse where a couple of thugs had been doing business.

(Sometimes, he logged in while Juno was in the middle of a firefight, and watched while on the edge of the seat. Even without an eye, Juno managed to come up with some creative solution that saved the day near every time. It took a large weight off his shoulders.)

But now, now was an exception. Usually, he only had to rewind three hours at most.

Never two days.

And for what, a subway station? And that woman, he recognized her from when Juno had taken that damn pill… He rewound it a bit more, trying to see what had called the detective to this run-down subway, and found that corrupt mayor and a woman who looked uncannily like a carnivorous fish.

Well. _That_ was going to be an issue.

His hands barely grazed the keyboard as he pulled up one of his online aliases. It was one designed a long while ago, when the moniker _‘Rex Glass’_ was still in use, and he’d determined that Juno would be an interesting character to look into.

Oh, what a wonderful understatement.

Atlas Stone was a grocery store clerk from Hyperion City who had a flair for the dramatics and was ambiguously insane or a genius. Due to the latter, Atlas Stone felt a certain connection to a certain stream that a certain secretary also had a taste for.

Looking over the notes he’d taken for Atlas Stone, he decided that the most realistic reason for Stone to contact Juno’s detective agency would be due to worries of mob activity, spotted at work but missed by Stone’s imaginary colleagues. He left it to interpretation whether the mob activity was some brilliant deduction or the work of paranoia.

Atlas Stone logged onto the detective agency’s website’s live text chat, and did not have to wait long before he saw Rita typing.

_•Hello Mx Potential Client, this is Ms Rita, may I have the reason you’ve contacted the Rita And Steel Detective Agency, and your preferred gender information?_

Thinking for a second, he typed,

 _-Miss Rita!_  
_-There is no time for gender!  
-The most terrible thing has happened and I must receive the immediate assistance of Detective Steel!_

 _•Well, sorry there Mx Potential Client, but you’ll hafta tell me what’s so terrible if ya wanna see_ _Mr Steel. He ain’t help out just anybody, yannow._

 _-But Miss Rita!_  
-What’s happened requires the greatest urgency!  
-It’s just like the season twelve finale in my favorite show, Jaws of Hydra! Immediate action is required!

_•Oh!! The main characta refused to believe the ambiguously insane-slash-genius cashier who swore he saw a mafia tattoo on one of the customers?_

_-How brilliant, to meet somebody who watches Jaws of Hydra as well, but I cannot celebrate, Miss Rita! Not when I live in fear that I will bag a mobster’s groceries wrong and…  
-Well, and reenact the seventh-season mid-summer finale!_

_•You’re right, Mx Potential Client! That would be particularly gruesome… Usually, I’m supposeta keep this info under lock and key, but for a fellow Hydra fan…_  
_•Well, it’s just me at the office right now. Last I’ve seen Mr Steel, he was rambling on about some free dome something or othah, and I don’t got a clue as to where he is!  
•really, it’s rather rude when ya think about it…_

_-Oh, but Miss Rita, I’m sure it was nothing against someone as kind as you! You’ve been awfully nice to me, he must be held up on a case he neglected to tell you about._

_•Awww, well why thank you, er, what should I call ya?_

_-Mr Atlas Stone, Miss Rita. Excuse me for my outburst, I now realize I am out of immediate danger._

_•Hey, Mr Atlas Stone?_

_-Yes, Miss Rita?_

_•I can’t find any information on anyone under Atlas Stone, or Stone Atlas, even. And no grocery clerks by the name of Stone, though there are three Atlases who all work in the same deli. Odd coinkydink, right? Ya sure you got the right name?_

That was… faster than expected. Impressive.

 _-Positive, Miss Rita._  
_-I intended to contact Mr Steel’s agency from the beginning.  
-Well, I suppose I ought to find another detective agency, if Mr Steel isn’t available._

And so he clicked out of the chat, ran all of his firewalls, and shut his laptop tight. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, though. As a master thief, he made a big deal of knowing about things that disappeared, and the Free Dome was a legend he’d long since revered. One of the short flings he’d had under a name long since forgotten had claimed to be a descendant of somebody who had left the Free Dome. Their ancestor had described the city that they’d left as chaotic and full of hallucinating lunatics, they’d said. But that fling didn’t just have an eyewitness account, they had something even more.

A way to find the location of the Free Dome from satellite imagery.

A hallway, they’d said, that ran straight out of the Martian soil and into the dome. Well, even if the Dome wasn’t still there, he could easily just type in search parameters for a thin rectangle… and…

_There._

Well, that had to be it. It was in the middle of nowhere, and covered in red sand. A few bumps were here and there, the topographical map suggested, buildings swallowed by sandstorms after decades upon decades.

And Juno had fed himself straight into the maw of the beast.

There were a few moments of silence, where it sunk in. Corrupt mayor. Carnivorous fish. Reckless detective. Centuries-old conspiracy of hallucinating idealists.

(That woman detective, Detective Strong, he thought, wasn’t an issue. She was a sensible woman. Strong would get out of this okay. He just wasn’t sure whether it would be enough to pull _Juno_ out of trouble.)

Then, something snapped, and he set off to plan the hastiest heist of the quickest car available.

 

-xXxXx-

 

It took longer than he’d anticipated to get to the site of the Free Dome.

He thought he might be too late.

Three bodies, he counted as he pulled up. One corrupt mayor, one carnivorous fish, and. Well. He’d done his research, and wasn’t surprised that Alessandra “Cockroach” Strong hadn’t ended up sprawled on the ground and basking in radiation.

But that meant…

He took the SolarQuilt™ that he had stowed in his car, wrapping it around himself like some ancient cloak. He half-ran, half-stumbled to the man in the trench coat, and choked on a sob when he realized that Juno was still breathing.

Even though the detective was still alive, immediate action was obviously necessary. Juno’s skin burnt just to the touch, and the detective was only semi-lucid. The SunQuilt™, however, was large enough to cover five people, and so he threw it over Juno as well, using his torso as some sort of tent pole. He sent a quick _“thank you”_ to every deity that he didn’t believe in that Juno was alive, but still...

It physically pained him to see Juno like this, head lolling in whatever nightmare it had cooked up. And, well, the detective was fairly cooked up, too. It was worse than any nightmare of watching Juno bleed out from a stab wound, somehow. Like this, he didn’t even have anything to gauge how close Juno was to-

No, he wasn’t going to think down that route. He had to come up with a plan of action, to disappear from this gods-forsaken desert, from this rust-colored hellhole that wanted to take _everything_ from him-

And then, a whispered voice. “Nureyev? Is that..?”

It took a while for him- for _Peter-_ to recognize that he was Nureyev. “Well,” Peter replied, voice a bit wet with tears, “I couldn’t leave you out here to die.”

Peter startled a bit when Juno mumbled, “‘m glad I left you that morning.”

Doing his best not to appear stricken, Peter asked amiably, “oh? And why would that be, now?”

“Don’ ask for what you ‘ready know.”

“I’m afraid I _don’t_ know why exactly you left me, Detective.”

“Fine,” Juno spat, twisting his head to the side. “It’s cuz I don’ deserve you, ‘right? You’re too damn good for me ’nd you’re better off without.”

“Oh, goodness, Juno…” Peter didn’t know what to say, so he just stuck to the facts. “That isn’t true. Juno, you’re wonderful. I look at Hyperion City and see another city, another heist. You look at Hyperion City and you see a madhouse of corruption, but one that you can fix.”

“Looked,” Juno breathed out. “Saw. Could’ve. Fixed.”

That reminded Peter of the deadline that the Martian radiation posed. “Come on, now, Detective. We must get to the car that I stole and get to the nearest city. Just like old times, hm?”

“Last time didn’ go so well.”

“So we’ll count this as the retest, then. Do you need me to carry you, or are you able to walk?”

“You couldn’ carry me if you wann’d to, Nureyev.”

“Well, I must admit, this isn’t exactly how I pictured our reunion, but if you require me to carry you over the threshold, I have no objections.”

Scooping up Juno bridal style and cradling him with the SunQuilt™, Peter made a dash for the car, the solar-protected car that could drive far away from here. Admittedly, though, it was difficult to carry Juno while the sand shifted beneath his feet and the sandstorm sent just a little more grains at his face every second. But this was for Juno, and Peter kept running, anyways.

He opened the passenger door first, and sat Juno down, still swaddled in the SunQuilt™. Peter, though he really didn’t have the time for it, made a split-second decision to buckle Juno in, under the seatbelt. Then, he slammed the door and raced for the driver’s side, pressing his foot hard on the accelerator before the door was even closed.

“Juno,” Peter called out in a sing-song voice, “it would ever be such a weight off my shoulders if you were to say something to me.”

“You know your name,” Juno slurred, disoriented from being moved.

“Detective, dearest, you’re going to have to be more specific.” Peter didn’t really mean to begin dropping the terms of endearment like his metaphorical hands were full, but they just fit so well.

“When’ver I see you, you’ve forgotten your name.”

“I’m sorry to say I haven’t seen you since that night in the hotel room, and while it’s been a while, I can’t say that I’ve forgotten my own name.”

“Heels, dark hallway,” Juno continued. “‘Lways dark. Never a car, though.”

Laughing a bit nervously, Peter asked, “Juno, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

“This’s a new low,” the detective said to himself. Juno’s head was swaying slightly, now, as if he were trying to shake a bug off of his head while submerged in honey. “Arguing with myself…”

Glad to be on the plain expanse of the Martian desert, devoid of obstacles to look out for, Peter turned to look at Juno. “Juno, are you alright?”

But this only seemed to pain Juno. The detective arched his neck, and chanted, _“undercrows, undercrows, undercrows-“_

“Juno, what’s-”

“That part’f me, still at that door, it’s still there and I’m still there, staring at Peter Nureyev-”

“Look over here, Juno, and you will be. I’m Peter Nureyev, you don't need to be stuck with the past!” Peter was panicking now, so afraid of what Juno’s nonsensical words might mean.

“-His sleeping body, if I couldn’t take care of myself how could I take care of that, that thing long since extinct, draped over in sheets in the city lights. It’s just a fucking dying dream, Peter.”

Startled, the steering wheel twisted under Peter’s flinch. It took a few seconds to correct course. Afterwards, Peter turned to Juno almost hesitantly. It wasn’t easy seeing Juno so distressed, and his semi-conscious mumbling made it worse. “Juno,” he said slowly, “do you think that this- that _I_ am a dream?”

“He isn’ here,” Juno replied. “You’re just a dream.”

Slowly, Peter turned back to face the expanse of the Martian desert, glad that he’d chosen a car that was designed to glide over the sand.

“Yes, I do suppose you’re right, Juno. It’s just a dream, of course.”

But this was the most real that Peter had felt in forever. With someone who knew his name, the only person that knew his name, dying in the passenger seat. Speeding towards some Martian city while the person that Peter had given everything to was insisting that this was all some twisted conjuring of a pained mind. It felt real. So real.

“A dream,” Juno agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> well that was fun to do instead of sleeping  
> if you want to talk, contact me on tumblr at [martianantares](http://martianantares.tumblr.com).


End file.
